nt to draw them
out, but Ruyter needed no invitation; the wind served, and he followed
the detached squadron with such impetuosity as to attack before the
allied line was fairly formed. On this occasion the French occupied
the centre. The affair was indecisive, if a battle can be called so in
which an inferior force attacks a superior, inflicts an equal loss,
and frustrates the main object of the enemy. A week later Ruyter again
attacked, with results which, though indecisive as before as to the
particular action, forced the allied fleet to return to the English
coast to refit, and for supplies. The Dutch in these encounters had
fifty-five ships-of-the-line; their enemies eighty-one, fifty-four of
which were English.

The allied fleets did not go to sea again until the latter part of
July, and this time they carried with them a body of troops meant for
a landing. On the 20th of August the Dutch fleet was seen under way
between the Texel and the Meuse. Rupert at once got ready to fight;
but as the wind was from the northward and westward, giving the allies
the weather-gage, and with it the choice of the method of attack,
Ruyter availed himself of his local knowledge, keeping so close to the
beach that the enemy dared not approach,--the more so as it was late
in the day. During the night the wind shifted to east-southeast off
the land, and at daybreak, to use the words of a French official
narrative, the Dutch "made all sail and stood down boldly into
action."

The allied fleet was to leeward on the port tack, heading about
south,--the French in the van, Rupert in the centre, and Sir Edward
Spragge commanding the rear. De Ruyter divided his fleet into three
squadrons, the leading one of which, of ten or twelve ships only, he
sent against the French; while with the rest of his force he attacked
the English in the centre and rear (Plate IV., A, A', A''). If we
accept the English estimate of the forces, which gives the English
sixty ships, the French thirty, and the Dutch seventy, Ruyter's plan
of attack, by simply holding the French in check as at Solebay,
allowed him to engage the English on equal terms. The battle took on
several distinct phases, which it is instructive to follow. M. de
Martel, commanding the van of the French, and consequently the leading
subdivision of the allied fleet, was ordered to stretch ahead, go
about and gain to windward of the Dutch van, so as to place it between
two fires. This he did (B);